


Drafting Her Future

by Shugarshock



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Physical Abuse, SHSL Writer! Mikan, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicide Attempt, its gonna get rough
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-11 00:14:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15303213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shugarshock/pseuds/Shugarshock
Summary: An AU where Mikan Tsumiki is the Ultimate Writer. This started out as me trying to design an outfit for this alternate Mikan and ended in tears and angst. This will follow Mikan through her despair and into SDR2.This is my first time doing a fic, so feedback is appreciated!





	1. Scrapped Ideas

She is still abused by parents, but instead of finding herself through bandages and painkillers she finds more solace in a pencil and scrap paper.

She writes little poems at first, small anecdotes on her abuse and how it makes her feel.

Her parents, of course, destroy as much as they can find. Any evidence could be used against them if child protective services ever came knocking. She apologizes as her mother marks her with a heated spoon. She inconvenienced them. Parents know best.

Unwanted. She was never supposed to happen. Her father throws bottles at her. It’s just a game, she tells herself. Dads are supposed to play with their daughters. She wonders if it’s supposed to hurt this much. 

She reads more, trying to avoid eye contact with bullies. Sometimes it works. Other times it causes more problems; the bullies will yell at her to pay attention. She apologizes when they rip apart her work in front of her face. 

Eventually, her writing culminates in novels. She takes a shine to romanticism and modern literature especially. She writes a new self where she can be confident and loved. It’s better this way. 

She attends Lapis Lazuli’s School for Girls. She hopes that an all-female class will keep her from bullies. It doesn’t. 

Middle school years and hormones are not pleasant. At first, Mikan is amazed at the attention. She believes that maybe people will start to like her. It doesn’t last. It never does.

If she cries, sometimes they stop touching her and just beat her instead. She gets really good at doing it on command. It’s not like it’s hard to summon them. All she has to do is remember who she is and they fall endlessly. 

She walks into the girls' room and is battered and bruised by vicious teenagers who call her names. She believes them and apologizes. She makes them late for class because they lose track of time while beating her. How could she do that to them?

She doesn’t think it’s that good [her writing], but a publisher seeks her out. He claims to have found it in the trash. In reality, his daughter took it home after breaking Mikan down at lunch. He tells her that he can get her a publishing deal. He needs something from her to make it worth his time. She knows. 

Mikan’s work takes to the shelves quickly and leaves the shelves even faster. She’s amazed at how much people talk about it. She wonders if it will change how people treat her. 

It doesn’t help. They read her books. They think the villains and antagonists are themselves. They berate her for writing them poorly. She should have known better.

Hope’s Peak Academy has scouted her. They want her to come to their prestigious school. Her parents are thrilled with the attention, but not the questions. Mikan keeps quiet. She’s a wallflower, taking in her surroundings. 

She memorizes about 5,000 different conversation starters and topics before moving into her dorm room. She is beyond herself, anxious to make friends. Mikan is starved for human connections.

The people here are certainly curious. A loud girl with colorful hair latches onto her. She scares Mikan a bit, but for the first time, she feels like she is not constantly in danger. It’s a funny feeling. A girl with red short hair snaps a photo of them together. She can’t understand why; she is not showing her anything and she isn’t pretty. The girls in the bathroom told her so. Maybe she’s keeping the photos to show what an ugly sow she is to everyone. Mikan learns this phrase from an ill-tempered girl that’s about half her size. Some things never change. 

Her classes are filled with wonderful people, but for some reason, she can’t connect with them. She apologizes constantly for it. They eventually stop trying to cease her tears. She’s annoying them and she knows it. She’s gotten good at reading faces. It makes for great character studies. 

Mikan knew this couldn’t last forever. Everything stays the same, only the faces and places change. She chokes out a ragged sob as she cleans up the mess she left. It wasn’t their fault, it was hers. That’s what they told her, anyway. The stains are so hard to clean out. She takes the needle and shakily tries to repair the ripped skirt. She doesn’t deserve a new one.

She laughs because it’s fucking _funny_. That she was worth anything other than this. The first time she does it to herself she feels a rush. It’s her hands, not theirs. She can get there before they do. Mikan hopes the scars never heal. She hopes that she’s thwarted them in an uncharacteristic moment of sheer brilliance. They can’t break something that’s already broken.

She’s wrong again. God, why is she so _stupid_? They take out markers and write all over her since she loves it so much. The alcohol from the felt tips seeps into the fresh cuts. It burns.

Some of them are sick. Away from her for a while. It’s maddening. She keeps expecting something to happen to her. Is she safe? She doesn’t feel happy, and she tears at her hair trying to figure out why. It dawns on her that without them, no one has talked to her in days. She’s alone. Alone with her own thoughts that bleed out from her ears and eyes and threaten to swallow her. Her books and musings become ravenous. She thinks she is going insane. The voices of her characters are clouding her thoughts. She picks up a pencil and sharpens it. Mikan writes until her fingers are sore, but it does not stop the noise. Her eyes wander from the pages, following the characters up her arm that they left. They were always written so she could read their hate notes, so she would remember what she really is. The mirror catches a smile tugging at the corners of her face, splitting it wide open. She takes the knife. She knows what helps the pain. 

She has a revelation as she watches her classmates in homeroom. She slowly undoes her shoelaces. They are ungodly long; usually she has to knot them three times so they don’t drag on the floor behind her. She takes a deep breathe, and then stands. One, two, three, four steps. She twists her foot down on one pair of the laces and wills her body forward. She crashes hard into the ground, but is careful to position herself so they can see everything. She cries out and summons her tears, begging for forgiveness. They stare and laugh. She sobs but in her heart she feels a twisted pang of joy. They noticed her again.

Her writing has been selling like crazy, but it causes her more problems. Secretly, she had hoped some knight in shining armor would hear the cries for help in between the lines, and rescue her. She hoped that it would lead her to love. The one called Saoinji reads her latest book and utterly destroys her confidence. She picks Mikan apart until there is nothing left but scraps. The dogs feast on the remains of her. Mikan smiles between her raged breaths and wails. Saoinji was right. She is _disgusting_. 

As she is cleaning herself up in her room, she avoids eye contact with her reflection. She hates this girl. She hates how weak and pathetic she is. She hates how much she depends on the sex and the scars and the words that she carved into her body that remind her how worthless she is. Her mother’s voice echoes in her room. _Unwanted_. She tries to cry, but somehow she can’t call forth the tears. A gurgled, mangled breath turns into laughter. She doesn’t feel anything.

Standing on the rooftop, she watches as the sun begins to set. She sits on the edge, and carefully places her shoes on the ground. She places the note between them. It took weeks of careful revisions and drafting, but she’s satisfied with the final copy. She looks at the sky and giggles to herself. It’s almost perfect. Her last work and it is going to be the one that satisfies everyone the most because she’s gone, gone, _gone_. Mikan stands up, and lets her toes curl around the ledge. She breathes in the cold air. She doesn’t feel scared. She doesn’t feel much at all. 

 

 

 

 

She leans forward and falls.

 

 

 

 

A hand reaches out and snags her by the wrist, and the shock jolts her senses. She feels her body being pulled up. She wants to struggle; this isn’t what she wanted but her whole body feels so heavy and tired. She can barely keep her eyes open when she finally is back on solid ground. She barely hears the laughter before she loses consciousness.

When she wakes up in the nurse’s office, she feels waves of conflicting emotions. She’s mad that someone would stop her. Why would anybody want to keep trash like her alive? She also feels numb, like there is a pit in her stomach and it’s filling with this horror that she is going to suffer. Part of her wants to laugh again, it’s hilarious. Why would she, of all people, get to choose when she lives or dies? Pigs like her don’t get to choose.

Laughter. She knows this sound. She knows this voice. She sits up and her eyes widen at the girl sitting before her. She doesn’t believe in God; why would she if He wouldn’t save her? But He must exist somewhere because the woman that watches her could only be described as angelic. She’s dressed to kill and her neatly manicured nails dance playfully across the bedside. The world seems to stop on its axis. Mikan feels like she can’t breathe because this air doesn’t belong to her, she is not worthy of it. Yet the girl scoots closer and tilts her head. Mikan knows when she’s being sized up. She adverts her eyes, she tries to catch her breath. She doesn’t say much to Mikan, but when she speaks it’s like a song. She expects the girl to spit on her, laugh at her, do something, anything to her. She flinches when the girl grabs her wrist, bracing for the pain. It never comes. She feels something slip into her her hands. The girls stands up and winks, her smile growing almost malicious. It’s charming, in it’s own twisted way. She promises they will talk soon before leaving. Mikan unfolds her fingers and finds her suicide note. It’s been opened, she can tell that much by the folds in the paper. She pulls it open, and it hit with the distinct smell of lilacs and roses. She can almost discern by the scent alone how expensive this perfume must be. The note is mostly in-tact, but there are new additions to her letter. In elegant handwriting, she finds something she never expected when writing. There is a response: 

_I know how you feel. There is a better way to do this. You’re too special to throw yourself away just yet. Meet me after class at the fountain. I promise I won’t bite~_

_Junko Enoshima_

The note is marked with sparkling pink lip gloss. Mikan traces the edge of the lips. They’re still tacky. The school nurse comes in and Mikan quickly hides the letter under the sheets. The nurse kindly informs her that she had tripped on her shoelaces and fell down the stairs. She is told by the nurse that she is lucky Miss Enoshima was there when she fell. Mikan is not sure if she’s right.


	2. Character Study

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikan does her homework and comes to a conclusion.

Mikan’s first instinct is to avoid this Enoshima girl at all costs. She doesn’t want to be saved. But she’s curious. There are too many unanswered questions and too many plot holes. She attempts storyboarding it all out on paper and creates a character profile on the girl. 

She knows she has to research her characters in order to flesh them out and give them the dimension they deserve. Enoshima is no different. Mikan googles her and is only slightly surprised to find she is a model. Go figure. She scans through interviews and photo shoots, taking in the small details. Sometimes interview scripts can be misleading; annunciation is key to understanding what someone really means. Mikan watches for any signs of extraneous emotions on the many faces she finds. 

When she is finally done her study it is nearly morning. She goes over her work, attaching notes to where she would need to double check her facts when she has a more clear mind. She slumps back in her chair and sighs. There is so much conflicting information. Apparently her savior was an enigma. Mikan couldn’t make heads or tails of it. From what she could gather, Junko Enoshima is an egotist, a narcissist, and the girl that apparently everyone wanted. Whether they wanted to be her or fuck her was just semantics. Her responses in interviews were sharp and to the point. The girl didn’t seem to like waiting for things, evidenced by video interviews Mikan had binged. Sometimes she was polite about being bored, and only offered a pursed lip and a clenched jaw that only the most discerning eye would be able to pick up on. Other times Enoshima was loud and had no issue telling her reporters to fuck clean off. What frustrates Mikan the most is that there was no real distinct trigger for the more emotional responses. There was nothing she could trace back to that would make Enoshima act this way. Sometimes she would even give a different answer to the same question. When she did that, Mikan could spot a twinkle in her eyes. She was fucking with the reporters, and she was enjoying it. It was beautiful and powerful and Mikan admires her for it. She adores the way Enoshima seemed to have everyone on a string. 

Enoshima is also incredibly smart. The interviews didn’t tell Mikan this. But those eyes did. She saw this look when Enoshima was staring at her in the nurse’s office. Those eyes were analyzing her. She is used to people eyeing her up, but usually it quickly turns to sneers and catcalls. Junko Enoshima was different. She kept looking. Her face was nearly unreadable; a blank sponge just absorbing as much information as she could on Mikan. For the first time, it felt like someone had seen Mikan. She is unsure how to feel about this. 

On top of all of this research, however, are her own personal observations from the brief moment they met. These notes are the most aggravating of all for Mikan. The Junko Enoshima she had seen was nothing like the girl in the interviews. She was nothing like her model persona. Mikan mulls over the possibility that Enoshima would keep a separate personality for her private life, but something still does not add up. The reports of Enoshima’s private life were a dubious primary source at best. Instagrams with fans would indicate that she was using what Mikan has dubbed the “model personality”. But was that her true nature? There were the times that Enoshima was loud and rough, was that her personality? Was it the smile that she saw Enoshima give her when she left the nurse’s office? Mikan twirls an uneven lock between her fingers and pulls. 

Mikan remembers Enoshima’s laughter. She remembers it sounding almost devious. She frowns. That was not the sound she imagined would come from a character that is a protagonist. Why would Enoshima save her? Something clicks in the back of her mind and her subconscious screeches to a halt. She was just like them. She was a bully and planned on being mean to her. Enoshima must have saved her not out of pity, but out of malice. She was laughing at the broken animal that was desperate for a release from the pain. Enoshima has denied her a happy ending and it was _funny_. 

Mikan wants to be furious at this girl. How dare this fake valley girl steal away her moment? She hates her. She despises her. Almost as much as the girl in the mirror. Almost. But she needs closure. On a fresh sheet of paper, she quickly writes out a confrontation with this Enoshima girl. She doesn’t bother editing it. It would hardly matter. 

Mikan balls the paper up and stuffs it in her pocket. Her heart is racing. Can she really do this? It was exciting, writing the climax of her stories. The protagonist could be the confident hero and she got to live through them. She knew what heroes were supposed to say, how they were supposed to look. Forcing herself to look in the mirror, Mikan tries pulling her shoulders back and standing tall. She furrows her brow and tries to snarl. Her face looks so foreign and strange. Mikan does not believe the girl she sees echoing her movements. She feels silly and dumb. She sighs, shoves the paper into her pocket and gets ready for homeroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a shorter chapter, but I felt that the confrontation between Junko and Mikan should be its own chapter. It felt silly to cut such an important scene in the middle. Again, please give me feedback!


	3. Characters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikan faces her savior. She gets more than she bargained for.

During her classes, she reads and rereads her speech in an attempt to memorize it. She’s never had to read any of her work out loud in front of an audience. 

Classes ended and somehow Mikan manages to avoid being noticed. They don’t actively try to interact with her, but Mikan does not want to take any chances. She sneaks out to the fountain. She’s alone. Mikan sits down at the edge of the fountain and clutches her note tight. She waits. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes pass. She knew it. She knew this was a prank. She’s so stupid to think that she could be a hero. 

She gets up to leave, and a tap on her shoulder nearly makes her fall into the fountain. She spins around and is face to face with those eyes once more. She can’t look away; she feels trapped in her gaze. It’s paralyzing and enchanting and her mind is blank. 

Mikan opens her mouth out of pure muscle memory and tries to start her speech, but her voice is cracking. She may be a brilliant writer, but when it comes to public speaking Mikan is a mess. It takes way too long for her to get even a sentence out, and when it finally comes it is so muddled with “ums” and whines that she wants to puke. Where has all her verbal rhetoric gone?

“Y-you...um...um you shouldn’t have d-done that!” 

Enoshima has shown uncharacteristic patience with this girl. Her eyes are wide with curiosity as she watches Mikan tremble before her. When she finishes her sentence, Mikan sees Enoshima’s lips curl into a predatory smile. It chills her spine and Mikan instantly recoils. She sputters out an apology and feels the tears welling up in her eyes.

Where is her resolve? Mikan can hear the voices reverberate within her skull. They scream at her that she can’t do this. That she is worthless and stupid. Just for once, Mikan would like to prove them wrong. 

Enoshima cocks her head to one side and takes a step towards her. Mikan steps back, balling her fist and scrunching up her face. She breathes in through her nose and grimaces as she watches those beautiful, perfect lips part. She can practically hear what this girl will say already: Worthless pig. Useless. Unwanted.

Mikan’s hands race up to her hair and pull. She is snarling and animalistic. She has to speak before Enoshima does. She had to silence this. It needs to end.

“YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME DIE!!” 

She could have heard a pin drop. Mikan was certainly sure Enoshima would be able to hear a lot of things: Mikan’s heavy breathing as the words sink into the ether of reality; her heartbeat erratically beating out from behind her lungs and jumping out of her ribs; the panicked fidgeting as Mikan slowly realizes what she’s done. There will surely be hell to pay for this. 

“I-I’m sorry!” Mikan flinches and brings her arms to her face. Maybe she can block a few of the punches. She knows she’s weak and she won’t win. She’s already given up anyway.

Nothing happens to Mikan. She hears a gentle giggle. She peaks between her fingers at the model. This Enoshima girl is staring at her again. Sizing her up. But her eyes are soft and full of wonder and awe. Enoshima hums, contemplative of Mikan’s outburst. 

“Well that was unexpected,” Enoshima muses out loud. She gives Mikan a wide, earnest grin. Mikan does not even know how to process this response. She is dumbstruck. The model sits down on the edge of the fountain and casually pats the space next to her. 

Mikan feels numb. There is a void in her heart that is consuming all her attention. When she doesn’t move right away, Enoshima shrugs and turns away from her. Rejection. Mikan is familiar with the feeling. It stings, but the sensation brings her back to reality. She wants to laugh and spit, but she doesn’t know why. What was this feeling? 

The only familiar thing about the situation is Enoshima’s attitude; she is using the “model persona”. Mikan can understand this. She recognizes the stoic face that stares out at the towering monolith of hope that is their school. It is something she has studied, and she finds comfort in this. She cautiously sits down next to Enoshima, giving herself a decent amount of distance in case things get ugly. 

There is silence for what feels like ages for Mikan. She folds her hands into her lap and stares at her oversized shoelaces. “W-why did you do it?” Her voice is a whisper, but she can feel herself being watched. She’s good at sensing this. “If...if you claim to know w-what this feels like, why would you save me?” 

Enoshima does not answer her right away. Mikan is used to this too. When people did interact with Mikan, they acted as if they were walking on eggshells. Mikan could crack at any moment. She hates this. She wishes people could be more upfront and not lie to her. It only makes things worse. 

“Didn’t you even read the note I gave you? Man, why did I even show up...” Enoshima’s personality turns south quickly. Mikan hastily tries to assess her face for details: stressed forehead, relaxed jaw, downcast eyes and slouching posture. All signs point towards depression or sadness. No violence imminent. Safe. For now, at least. But this a new personality. One that Mikan did not account for. 

Mockery is something Mikan recognizes. It’s a more uncommon tactic employed by her tormentors; why would anyone want to act like trash anyway? It still stings and Mikan flinches reflexively. The voices of her past ring in her ears again, stating the obvious. Should she apologize? It seems that she has offended this girl, who was kind enough to save her. Is that the right thing to do? 

“I-…..I’m sorry…” The girl next to her does not react. Wrong answer. Mikan wrings her hands. This is torture for her. 

Wait, why was she here again? Mikan feels the note crumpled in her hands. She tries to process her emotions again. There was so much anger in her words, but she feels empty inside. Does she want to die still? It may be better than this feeling of falling endlessly. _So why did she steal that from me?_ Mikan feels the tears on her hands. She’s too used to them on her face to notice them.

“D-don’t patronize me!” She grits her teeth and grabs at the hem of her skirt until her knuckles turn white. “Everyone always- everyone always does that and and and and aaaaaand,” Mikan turns towards Enoshima, and it is an exhilarating feeling of power that forces the end of the sentence into reality, “you can hate me better than that. Don’t. You. Think?” 

The blonde’s dour expression is succeeded by a smirk. She pulls her arms around herself as if she was restraining herself and cackles. This only makes Mikan more furious, and she is struggling to keep that feeling of control in her hands but it is quickly slipping through her fingers. The brilliant confrontation that Mikan had written out meticulously is crumbling. She shivers through the tears that keep falling down her face. 

Suddenly Enoshima is much closer than she was before and Mikan has no time to react as she grabs her hand.

“I don’t hate you. Why would I hate you? We don’t know each other.” 

“B-b-but I know you!” Mikan sputters out oh God her hand is so warm on hers. 

“Ah, so you have done your research on me,” Enoshima remarks with a tone that is more authoritative than Mikan had expected. Her posture straightens out and she slides a pair of reading glasses out of her pocket. Mikan’s mind is frantic and her head feels like bursting from confusion. Did Enoshima need glasses? Mikan recalls her character profile and sifts through dozens of notes in her thoughts. Her brief mental check states otherwise. When Mikan pulls herself back to the fountain and Enoshima, she confirms her suspicions with only a glance at the woman next to her. The glasses had no lenses. 

“So tell me, Tsumiki-san. What did your character profile indicate would happen today?” Mikan feels the color leave her face.

“Ah...awawawah...w-what are you t-talking about?” Mikan wants to slap herself for being so obvious. She knows she is a better liar than this. Usually, she can convince people through tears, but she knows she’s already damned herself. The uncertainty wavering in her voice is too cliche, too telling. 

“Awwww, did you think I didn’t know what you were up to?” Enoshima brings her hands to her own face, squishing her cheeks together. Her voice has become more high pitched and drips with sweetness. Mikan feels like throwing up. This girl is fucking with her. 

“You didn’t have to be soooo obvious about all this, ya know? It makes this all super boring for me. You’re despairingly predictable!” 

“What do you want?” Mikan is breathless. She can’t keep up with these personalities. “Is t-this all to prove a point? That you knew I was trying to understand who you are? Is that why you’ve been changing your personality?” Every cell in Mikan’s body screams at her to run away from this place. She ignores the impulse. She needs closure. 

“Well, duh. Took ya long enough to get there.” Gone was the cutesy voice, and Mikan was back with the girl from the nurse’s office. “But I have to admit, that’s not entirely the reason I did that. It’s something to keep me entertained.” Mikan tries to pull her data together and quickly determines the character trait that she had overlooked. “Bored. You hate being bored, r-right?” 

“Well done! We are pleased with your quick wit!” The writer nearly falls into the fountain from shock as this voice booms out in a British accent. Enoshima’s shoulders have pulled back and she looks down on Tsumiki. The change in personalities is giving Mikan whiplash. 

Mikan knew this girl was intelligent, but this has exceeded her expectations. She had outplayed Mikan on every conceivable level, and she had done it without Mikan noticing. The stuttering writer scoots a bit further away from Enoshima. She needs space to run. An exit. But for now, Mikan resigns herself to finish what she has started. If she’s going down, she will at least go down swinging. 

“W-well, if that’s true….then why did you come here?” 

“Upupupu~! So you admit that you did it?” Enoshima’s Cheshire grin inched closer to Mikan, and she quickly moved back. 

“S-so what if I did? What does it matter what a trashy skank like me does? Why does it matter if I stop existing?” 

“Why do you think so little of yourself? You’re a pretty girl at Hope’s Peak Academy, the most sought-after school. People would die to be in your place.” Mikan can’t seem to break eye contact with Enoshima. She feels trapped, helpless, and afraid. Lots of boys called her pretty. She never liked what followed. 

“I’m...I’m not like you...” Her voice is meek and she can barely think straight because this woman is so close to her. She waits for the grabbing hands, the sound of ripping fabric, and the hot breath on her face. What she feels is a soft pigtail on her shoulder, an arm against hers, and a gentle hum. Mikan stiffens, alarmed at the gentle gesture.

“Maybe not, but we are the same in some ways. You did read the note I wrote, right? I even took time to decorate it for you.” Enoshima plays with a piece of Mikan’s choppy hair, letting the strands trickle over her fingers across red nails. “I think you’re more important than you give yourself credit for. Can’t that be reason enough?” 

Enoshima is still leaning against Mikan, her head resting on her shoulder. After all of this nonsense, Mikan has no idea where to turn or what to do. She had thought she knew the end of her story. 

”Reason e-enough for what?” 

”To live.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost lost the plot on this one, mostly because Junko is so unpredictable in nature. I hope you liked it though!


End file.
